Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC of this book!

3.5 stars, rounded up.

What's Eating Jackie Oh is an engaging story about a Korean American girl who loves to cook, her family and the challenges they all face, plus a fun television cooking competition. I enjoyed the story and found Jackie to be a likable character who I rooted for. I think this book is perfect for younger teen readers who aren't quite ready for all the YA books with 18-19 year old protagonists and more mature topics. That said, the book does address some serious topics in an accessible way, such as the model minority myth, the impact of COVID, and anti-Asian racism and violence. My only critique is the abruptness of the ending--I would have liked to see a bit more resolution for Jackie and all the other characters.

Jackie was such a good character and I liked learning about her. She had such a strong passion for cooking and I loved seeing it. Watching her parents start to understand her passion and root for her was nice. The ending was a bit abrupt but it brought in major real life issues. I liked that it showed her castmates sticking up for her.

I received an arc through netgalley.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
I mostly enjoyed the previous book I read from Patricia Park, and What’s Eating Jackie Oh? Sounded similarly promising. And while I liked the ideas presented, I found the execution a tad lacking.
Jackie Oh is a relatable protagonist, and I respect what the story was trying to do in interrogating the “model minority” archetype. I like how we see her grapple with parental pressure, especially as her parents already “lost” one child who failed them, and her true passion for cooking doesn’t fit into the mold they’ve set for her.
And the cooking competition was a lot of fun, and was a solid structure for the book itself, presenting realistic obstacles for her to battle against in her quest to prove her abilities, not to mention providing myriad food-related references.
But in the effort to create such a hard-hitting book, I feel like some of the issues got lost in the shuffle. I kept wondering if her brother being in prison would be developed more, and it wasn’t. Even the pressure and disapproval from her parents felt weirdly sidelined at times. I became very confused as to what exactly the message the reader was meant to take away from the book.
While I didn’t 100% love this, I do like the ideas presented here, even if I wish they had been more fleshed out or focused. If you’re looking for a book that interrogates the “model minority” and follows the journey of becoming oneself, I’d recommend giving this book a chance.

What's Eating Jackie Oh? is a solid book about a Korean teen wanting to break free of traditional roles being forced upon her. I love books about cooking so the fact that she wants to be a professional chef and it takes place on a cooking show brought this book to the next level. The side characters were fleshed out and endearing and I would recommend this book.

Patricia Park’s writing captured my heart in Imposter Syndrome and Other Confessions of Alejandra Kim. When I saw she had a new book out, I requested it before I even read the description!

Jackie Oh is the youngest child of two Ivy grads. With an older brother in the prison system, she feels extra pressure to be the perfect daughter. Except…she isn’t perfect, not in the ways her parents want her to be. She doesn’t strive to get her MBA, get perfect grades, has no law school desires. She wants to be a chef. Even to her beloved grandparents, who own a deli, becoming a kitchen professional isn’t enough…even if she does do a great job helping out at the deli after school and on summer break. When Jackie goes on a teen version of their favorite cooking competition TV show, she finds herself facing new hurdles beyond cooking techniques, from class pet show offs to influencers to child actors. This Hollywood version of cooking demands that Jackie show who she is on the plate– but how is she supposed to do that if she isn’t sure herself?

Whatever you do, don’t read this book while hungry! The food descriptions are drool-inducing. Even the most satiated reader won’t be able to read about Jackie’s culinary creations without daydreaming about eating them. Thankfully, Park includes a few of Jackie’s recipes in the back of the book!
The food, settings, and weight of cultural expectations are work together to weave this story. Jackie thinks of herself as a New Yorker, but these TV judges keep wanting her to add kimchi to everything. Growing up in New York City, Jackie has eaten all kinds of foods, and has a true talent for creating complex, compatible flavor profiles that are unexpected. The reader truly gets to see all the areas of Jackie’s life come together via food, and it is a beautiful, and tasty, metaphor.

Park is an expert at creating a relatable, flawed character with an incredible voice. Jackie is a blend of her family members, her friends, her world, and herself. She can jump to conclusions one minute, and do the right thing– even if it’s hard– in the next.
I’ve seen a lot of contemporary novels that write Covid out of the storyline, erasing it and its effects from history as a part of worldbuilding. But teens are reckoning with the effect Covid had on their lives. Especially those who belong to the AAPI community and had hate hurled at them during the worst of it, and continue to deal with hateful words, bullying, and hate crimes due to their identity. Showing this on the page is vital, and Park does so in a way that fits seamlessly with the world and characters without ever veering into a ‘message-y’ tone.

The effect Covid had on her grandparents’ business, both from the drop in people leaving their homes and due to their Asian-American identity, still influences their and Jackie’s decisions. When deciding what to put on the menu, they shy away from including Jackie’s clever Korean-fusion ideas, thinking their midtown Manhattan clientele won’t like it. This leaves Jackie constantly second-guessing her place in the world, and what dishes she makes in the kitchen.

Other difficult food topics Jackie learns to face include include wealth disparity and food insecurity. Jackie’s best friend, KT, excels at school and is all about studying. Meanwhile, all Jackie can think about is food, angling for an audition for the teen version of her favorite cooking show, and more food. KT and Jackie’s frustrations with each other come to a head before Jackie leaves for LA. Jackie carries the weight of their fractured friendship alongside her difficult relationship with her parents and her secret relationship with her brother, whom her parents disowned.

Jackie learns more than cooking techniques during her time on the TV show. She begins to process who she is and what circumstances have shaped her. Multi-intergenerational trauma, her grandparents immigration from Korea before her mother was born, and the recent uptick in anti-Asian and anti-Asian-American and Pacific Islander sentiments and actions affect her off and on the show. Watching Jackie learn not to judge others, and in turn accept that perhaps others aren’t judging her, is a beautiful reminder we all need sometimes.

Once again, Patricia Park has created an unforgettable novel that will live in your mind– and on your plate, if you’re willing to try the included recipes– long after you’ve finished Jackie’s story.

What’s Eating Jackie Oh? will be available April 30, 2024. Thank you to the author, NetGalley, Random House Children’s/Crown Books for Young Readers.

First off I’m a sucker for a pink cover and this one is just to good 💕💗💖💞💓next I see that the main protagonist ✨Jackie✨ enters the competitive world of a TV cooking show all whilst lacking support from her parents who think she needs to forget her dreams of being a professional chef and follow more in their path for a career.

A great YA contemporary, that delivers a glimpse into a Korean American teenagers life… Jackie’s passion for food/cooking came off the pages and had me looking forward to every delicious dish prepared. You do get a look at Jackie’s relationship with her grandparents, her parents, friends as well as her brother, who is incarcerated. The book tackles multiple situations/themes and is done in a way that is not daunting to the reader and felt really honest. This would be such a great YA Bookclub pick with a range of great topics to discuss.

Thank you Crown Books for Young Readers & PRH Audio
Releases 4/30

Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Lyon.brit.Andthebookshelf/

This book was very fun to read! It was an interesting story revolving around a cooking competition show. The story was full of energy and all of the exciting aspects of a competition show. Many interesting characters introduced different methods and styles of cooking or baking, which was also interesting to read about.

I wish there was more romantic development between Jackie and Stephen. It was as if they hated each other and then one meal later, they were in love. I would have liked to see a lot more development there even if it wasn't a main aspect of the story.

Similarly, I felt that Jackie's relationship with her mom felt rushed or unexpected. It seemed like her mom flipped a switch one day and they were on good terms out of nowhere. Again, I would've liked to have seen the relationship develop more naturally.

The ending felt super abrupt as well. It felt like there wasn't much conclusion and the conclusion we did get was done through a social media thread.

I did rate this book 4 stars regardless of my critisism because it was so fun to read. It was a quick read as well that pulled me out of a bit of a reading slump!

What’s Eating Jackie Oh is about a 15 year old who is expected to be an amazing student and is instead obsessed with cooking. Her grandparents are Korean immigrants.

Jackie is a protagonist in just didn’t like. She spoke in acronyms, like calling people by initials (H&H for her grandparents), which I hated. She was selfish and could only see her own life from her own shoes. Her character didn’t grow much either. She’s outwardly rude to people who are nice to her. None of it makes sense.

The author tried to fit way too many topics in this book. We should all learn about the hate and racism that so many Asian people had to endure during and after Covid because we should all be living better than that. But then the author put in so many other topics that congested the book.

Why does this author constantly say Americans prefer boring food? It’s not true. At least it isn’t where I live. Then again, I was born in Germany and love food from other places. It’s how I grew up.

The ending has no real resolution. The book just ends. I was so frustrated at that.

The writing showed promise. I just wanted to dig deeper into some of these other people. The view behind the scenes of the cooking show was cool, but bringing in people who couldn’t cook when so many can? That didn’t seem realistic.

I don’t know. This one wasn’t for me. I’d definitely try this author out again, though. I received this ARC for my honest opinion.

"I found 'What's Eating Jackie Oh!' lacking in comparison to 'Imposter Syndrome and Other Confessions of Alexandra Kim.' My anticipation stemmed from a personal connection, as my late sister and I shared a love for food channels and reality cooking competitions.

The narrative centers on Jackie Oh, an Asian teenager grappling with the pressures of her traditional, academically-driven parents. While the story touches on themes typical of early 2000s portrayals of Asian families, such as familial expectations and academic excellence, it falls short in depth and conflict. Jackie's solace lies in cooking, a passion misunderstood by her family.

However, the book suffers from many reality TV tropes, lacking substantial conflict and resolution. It delves into various adolescent issues—crushes, friendship dynamics, familial tensions—but fails to provide meaningful development. Jackie's dialogue feels formulaic, reminiscent of lines from a cooking competition show.

My primary gripe with the book is its reliance on telling rather than showing, coupled with a lack of conflict and resolution. The predictability of the competition's outcome detracts from any suspense. Despite these flaws, I bumped my rating from 2 to 3 stars out of respect for the author."

What’s Eating Jackie Oh? by Patricia Park🥘🩷

* Coming of age
* Behind the scene reality tv
* Korean/Korean-American culture
* Navigating challenging mother-daughter relationship
* Discussion of incarceration
* Discussion of hate crime
* Aspiring chef
* Navigating friendships

Jackie is just another teen trying to figure out life while juggling understanding her ethnic identity, family troubles and lack of discussions, struggling to connect with her friends, her dreams not aligning with what her family wants for her and more. I mean, isn't that what being a teen is?

She gets the opportunity of a lifetime to go on a cooking reality show but this is all while she is losing grasp of her schooling. Her family, especially her parents, are upset. Jackie doesn't care and goes for it. What comes with it, is a tsunami of actual reality.

Jackie comes face to face with the ingredients of life: family, friends, culture, history, feelings, ignorance, and more. She needs to learn how to mix these ingredients of life in order to make the close to perfect recipe for her to make sense of life in itself.

I loved this book. You guys know whenever I read YA I try to picture if I can give this to my future students and I definitely would. Middle or high school, this book would have interested me as a kid and it pulled me in even as a 23 year old. I wanted to know more about Jackie and her background. I wanted to know her family's culture. I did want her to dive deeper into her ethnic background but I loved that she also decided to look beyond it when she wanted to branch beyond it. She didn't want to be labeled and that's admirable. Like any teenager, she had her annoying, faulty moments but it wouldn't be a coming of age story without it. I just wished there would have been a little more on her brother & dad's relationship and everything going on with her grandfather at the end. It felt rushed and I was left wanting more.

Overall, I can't wait to put this in a future student's hands!

Quote I loved: "When you truly love what you love, and you want to be the best at it, then "good enough" will never good enough."

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Children’s, and Patricia Park for this amazing eARC!!! 🫶🏽

Thank you so much to netgalley and Random House Children's for the arc of this book in exchange for an honest review!

This book follows Jackie, a high schooler who would rather be cooking than studying and pleasing her Korean parents. Her parents have very high expectations of her, especially since her brother is in jail and a "disappointment." When she gets the chance to be on her favorite reality cooking show, she takes it despite going against her parents.

Unfortunately, this book was not for me. I feel like it just bit off too much and was trying to talk about way too much. It should have focused on just a few plot points instead of everything. I also didn't really like Jackie as a main character. She seemed annoying and whiny to me. Maybe I am too old for this story since I am not a teenager.

I hope others love this one but it was not for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC! I really enjoyed this book. The characters were fun, the storyline was intriguing, and I’ve never read anything like it! However, I found the ending lacking. Hopefully that changes in the officially published version of the book!

Jackie is tired of living up to her Korean American parents' Ivy League dreams. She wants to be a professional chef and works at her grandparents' Midtown Manhattan deli. It's one of the few places she can get away from her stresses. When she gets a spot on a teen cooking show, it feels like a dream come true. But there are teen stars, gimmicky challenges, and different kinds of stress that make it very hard to be who she really is.

The model minority myth states that Asians are quiet, work hard, study all the time, and get into good schools to get high-paying jobs. Not every Asian child meets this standard, which is impossibly high and has led to additional classes and cram schools on weekends or summers. The children who don't fulfill this standard, including Jackie's own brother, are shunned and never talked about again, as if they don't exist. Jackie's dream of being a chef is seen as a throwback to her immigrant grandparents who had no other choice than to cook in order to pay bills. Even her close friend studies all the time to get into an Ivy League college and doesn't understand her love of food and flavors. The barely suppressed rage in Jackie is one that many teens feel once they're trapped in dreams that others have for them, but she's expected to swallow it down and follow the plan that will make her and her family look good.

We see the behind-the-scenes look at the cooking show, which is extra fun if you love watching cooking game shows already. Producers try to get tidbits to air on TV, some contestants try to psych each other out, and it's difficult to get past the challenges every week. Jackie's mother is with her as a chaperone, and eventually, the two are forced to talk. It's enough to put a crack in the wall between them, enough to give Jackie and us hope that they can build a better relationship going forward. She even says that she learns more about her mother in ten minutes than in all of her prior years. This leads her to be more open when dealing with her friends.

Of course, there are challenges along the way, including trying to showcase who she is rather than what the judges seem to expect her to be. She's dealing with a lot, even without the references to hate that Asian Americans received during the height of the pandemic. I really enjoyed Jackie and her perspective and saw a lot of myself in her. Certain scenes really came close to home, and you don't have to have had the same background to understand the stresses that she was under and the need for her own purpose.

3 1/2 🦋🦋🦋🐞

Jackie Oh is obsessed with cooking and cooking shows. Her favorite thing in the world is helping out at her grandparents diner, Melty, where she thrives on the rapid pace of cooking and concocting. Jackie, however, is a high school student whose parents would rather she focuses on her grades so that she could have a solid and practical future. Cooking and owning a restaurant, while nice, isn’t solid or practical. When Jackie scores a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be on a spin-off of her favorite cooking show, she learns a few things about herself and cooking in Patricia Park’s What’s Eating Jackie Oh?.

Caveat: I am not the intended audience for this novel so take my comments/review in that spirit.

I’m going to do something I normally don’t do and that is bullet-point my observations/opinions.

Jackie’s familial situation reminded me of last year’s Throwback by Maureen Goo (see my review), right down to doting grandparents (grandmother) and antagonism between parents and child. Also reminiscent was the mother’s line (in both books) that said that KPop and KDrama were not yet cool when she was growing up so she had to be cool in other ways to fit in.
Jackie’s self-absorption and self-centeredness grew tiresome as did her being angry so much, especially how it related to her best friend, KT, whom we see she couldn’t be bothered to learn that much about nor the vegetable delivery guy that Jackie presumed to know. While she did change, I wish it had begun earlier.
If I know that CIA stands for Culinary Institute of America, I’m pretty sure a cooking show host would as well.
The cooking event among the teens embraced a lot of cliché. I did like the interactions between Jackie and the teen from Chicago, Gus who seemed to be the most talented chef among them.
The ending action/situation seemed intended to shock and felt out-of-place tonally in this YA novel. While the message is necessary, how it occurred in this novel should have been handled differently.
I loved the relationship Jackie had with her grandparents. They all had a great time together and there was real affection and love and teasing. These were some of my favorite interactions in the novel.
All in all What’s Eating Jackie Oh? was an engrossing, mostly enjoyable, quick read that may have tried to cover a little too much ground in a short time.

Many thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy.

What a great coming of age story. I enjoyed this one a lot.

Jackie Oh is a New Yorker who loves cooking, doing so at her grandparents shop. When she gets scouted by a teen spinoff of her favorite cooking show, she jumps at the chance, though it contradicts her parents expectations for her. After getting on the show, she competes to win, while facing personal conflicts and challenges with her family, members of the show, and Anti-Asian hate.

Watching Jackie, our protagonist, coming into her own, both in her relationship with her family, her relationship with herself, and her relationship with her talent, cooking, with a backdrop of her existence and experience as a Korean-American, was a wonderful read.

I love books themed around cooking. The food in this book sounds so good, the cooking competition was a great
read, and there are recipes at the end? Hell yes!

Off camera, Jackie has to navigate conflicts with her parents and their expectations, and brother in prison, and the ripple effect that has on her life, friendship challenges both on the show and back home, and an unexpected tragedy. Watching her grow and change, repaired damaged relationships and growing new ones, was a wonderful time. Though I will admit I was a tad disappointed by the ending.

Jackie Oh is a Korean American teen chef. She is working through her relationships with her parents, her brother, her grandparents and her peers. While trying to make her parents proud with her schoolwork, she enters a major televised food competition for teenagers. I loved how Jackie found her voice with her family, her peers and through her cooking. I love that the author included recipes in the back of the book.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.

I really like Jackie and find her relatable as she wrestles with her identity and her family’s expectations. Plus, blending cooking and reality TV into YA fiction is great escapism. With food on my mind, I couldn’t resist going to a Korean Hot Pot restaurant between chapters.
Outside of the cooking show, the tension in many of Jackie’s relationships, including her relationship with herself, kept me reading (and highlighting quotable bits).
Jackie’s relationship with her grandparents makes me smile, and cooking with them seems like so much intense fun. Getting to know her brother through his letters also creates a layer of depth to her story. Her complicated relationship with her mom is well developed and adds another way for readers to connect with the characters.
This book is accessible to readers with many different interests because of all its layers. However, it takes on so many issues that they could not all be developed as well as I would have liked. Near the end, the novel felt rushed, and I wasn’t ready for the last page. I still had questions and wanted to know more.
I would put this book in grades 6-10 classrooms. So many people will find this novel relatable: foodies, anyone who struggles with the expectations of others and their own dreams… Don’t let the cover or intended audience fool you, even though this is written for upper middle grades, this novel offers more than many in that category. Yes, it's fun, but is also insightful and thought provoking.
Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available

Patricia Park has created a fabulous book that brings together food, family, expectations, aspirations, stereotypes, and prejudice. I fully enjoyed this novel on a lot of different levels.

The main theme is about a girl being true to herself even when it means doing something that her family doesn’t necessarily approve of. Jackie Oh is Korean, which has the unspoken understanding that her parents expect her to have a high GPA and career aspirations. But what Jackie really wants is to be a chef, to feel the joy that she has when working in her grandparents’ diner. She struggles to care about school and risks it all when an opportunity arrises to audition for a teen cooking challenge. During the interview process and on the challenge itself, she has to question who she is and what kind of chef she wants to be. There is an implicit expectation that she cook “Asian” and that she act a certain way. We have all faced stereotypes, but these expectations and, at times, rude comments begin to tear her down.

I loved the intergenerational relationships in this story as well as the generational trauma that faces many families, especially immigrants. I remember dealing with my grandparents’ behavior after living through the Depression and how it colored everything they did.

I was surprised by how it brought in the hate crimes that happened post-Covid to the AAPI community. That said, I think it is important for that to be acknowledged and for a wider swath of people to understand it. As May is AAPI Heritage Month, this is coming out just in time to be fully celebrated at that time.

This is a wonderful book for high school libraries.

What's Eating Jackie Oh? by Patricia Park is a captivating novel that delves into the lives of authentic characters who will evoke both laughter and tears. This engrossing tale is filled with appealing characters, culinary elements, and heartfelt moments that will keep me hooked from beginning to end.

WHAT'S EATING JACKIE OH is about a Korean American teen who enters a cooking TV show to follow her dream of becoming a chef while balancing her family's cultural expectations. This was my first novel by Patricia Park, and unfortunately, it didn't deliver for me. I found the writing style very basic and the discussions of culture simplistic compared to other books about these topics that I've read.

This book read very young to me and is probably something I'd recommend to middle grade readers who are interested in reading books about older teens rather than to older young adults. It's very straightforward with not a lot of nuance so I think a younger reader might be more interested in this than an older teen.

I was not personally engaged by this, which is disappointing since I love YA books about cooking shows, but I can see how this could be appealing to a younger audience.

I would still try other books by this author to see if they'd be a match for some of my teens, so hopefully I have better luck with some of this author's older titles.

Thank you to Random House Children's for this review copy.